Modelling Matter Symposium - Durham

St Chad's College, Durham University
26-28 March 2008
Sponsored by Durham University's Institute of Advanced Study
www.dur.ac.uk/i.j.kidd/Modelling_Matter.htm

Organisers: Dr R F Hendry & Dr M D Eddy
This interdisciplinary two-day symposium will investigate the different strategies and methods of modelling and representing across the physical and life sciences, and the ways in which models relate to their subject matter and to the empirical evidence. Scientists represent the world using a wide variety of media, including mathematical and physical models, equations, graphs and visual diagrams, and of course language, analogy and metaphor. Historians and philosophers of science have examined the traditions and modes of representation across different sciences, and in particular when different scientific disciplines interact. Particular traditions of representation employ different media together, so that one medium can take over when the expressive power of another runs out. Thus, for instance, in theoretical physics and chemistry, visual arguments are sometimes employed when more formal mathematical derivations are intractable. Traditions develop so that the modes of representation are implicit, and transparent to the practitioners. Their particular origins and status are unquestioned, and the medium of representation itself is essentially invisible to the practitioner.
Modelling Matter Symposium
26-28 March
St Chad’s College, Durham University
Wednesday, 26 March
Perspectives on Models and Representation
2pm (1) ‘Models: Parables versus Fables’
Prof Nancy Cartwright FBA, Professor of Philosophy, London School of Economics and University of California, San Diego.
3pm (2) ‘A Hierarchical Account of Theories and Models’
Prof Ronald Giere, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Minnesota
4pm Tea/coffee
Perspectives on Models and Representation (continued)
4.30pm (3) ‘Modelling Matter with Paper Tools’
Professor Dr Ursula Klein, Research Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
5.30pm (4) ‘Physics and the Philosophy of Scientific Modeling’
Dr Eric Winsberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of South Florida
6.30pm Bar
7.30pm Dinner
Thursday, 27 March
Biology and Models
9.30am (5) ‘Tables for Models: Medicine and Mineralogy during the Enlightenment’
Dr Matthew D Eddy, Lecturer in History of Science, Durham University & Caltech
10.30am (6) ‘Models in Molecular Biology, and their Present Evolution’
Prof Michel Morange, Professor of Biology, ENS and University of Paris 6, Director, Cavailles Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences, ENS
11.30am Tea/coffee
12noon (7) ‘Models for Modelling Matter’
Dr Michael Weisberg, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania
1pm Lunch
Chemistry and Models
2pm (8) ‘Modelling Chirality’
Professor Seymour Mauskopf, Professor of History, Duke University
3pm (9) ‘Modelling Molecules: from Wollaston to Hofmann’
Professor David Knight, Emeritus Professor of the History of Science, Durham University